Wetpixel community member and frequent contributor Mike Bartick has just published his book documenting his journey into the arcane and exotic world o blackwater diving and photography. It features a compilation of his images, and is available now as an eBook in both pdf) and iBook formats
Over the past few weeks, Mike Bartick of Crystal Blue Resort in Anilao, Philippines has been testing Retra’s lastest strobe accessory. The Reflector is a polished aliminum beam director that reduces the spread but increases the brightness of the flash’s output, and Mike has tested it for both wide angle and macro photography.
In this episode of Wetpixel Live, Adam Hanlon chats to Crystal Blue Resort’s Mike Bartick about blackwater photography and specifically, the cameras and tools he deploys to capture his amazing images. Due to bandwidth and connection issues, the sound quality is a little difficult at times, but the information is so valuable, that this more than compensates!
Blackwater photography is a genre of underwater imaging that has achieved some prominence recently. Wetpixel Editor Adam Hanlon chats to pro photographer and Manager of Crystal Blue Resort, Anilao Mike Bartick about what blackwater photography is, how to set it up, and some key diving skills needed to capture these amazing images.
Mike Bartick provides a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated review of the new Backscatter MF-1 flash and OS-1 snoot. As Mike notes, these products offer some very interesting and unique creative opportunities. Mike also feels that as it is also fundamentally easy to use, this makes snoot photography more accessible.
Mike Bartick of Saltwater Photo provides a beautifully illustrated article about the mysterious and iconic blanket octopus. These open ocean creatures sometimes reach 2 meters in length. Mike describes their biology and lifecycle before recounting his own encounters and photographic experiences with these remarkable creatures.
Mike Bartick of Saltwater Photo provides a beautifully illustrated primer on making, buying and using reflection rings to achieve their signature circular reflection effect. He describes how images produced with this tool can be used to provide variety in a photographer’s portfolio.
In the next installment of his series, award-winning photographer Mike Bartick has written an extensive article about the recent Anilao slugfest, illustrated with his stunning images. The event added more species to the master list of species extant in Anilao, bringing the number recorded to over 1,000. In his article, Mike also shares a primer about nudibranch behavior and some tips on how to find and photograph these charismatic animals
Underwater photographer Henley Spiers has shared the second of his series of interviews entitled “Conversations with Underwater Photographers” wherein he interviews Mike Bartick. Henley is fascinated by the life story, process, and experiences of his favorite underwater photographers.
Award-winning photographer Mike Bartick has written an extensive article about octopuses for Wetpixel, illustrated with his stunning images. He refers to the wunderpuss (Wunderpus photogenicus), the mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus), coconut octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) and of course, the blue ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena sp.) as being the “Big 4” of octopus species and describes both their natural history and techniques for capturing images of them.